Does anyone have any opinions on where your fixed income should be held in a long term portfolio?

Any thoughts on TIPS vs TLT vs BNDX vs BND?

Sometimes I have a hard time wrapping my head around this subject, especially the ETF qoutient of it all.

At the moment, international bonds are returning the highest. Thoughts?

I'm no expert in fixed income but I'd guess some mix of long term and short term corporates and gov. Maybe some combo of BND VCLT TLT IEF? Dunno about BNDX, all the performance is from collapsing yield. I don't think anyone has any idea how the zero interest experiment will play out.

If some of this is taxable maybe look into munis.

really depends on your circumstances.

in the last 15 years, i'd say long term government bonds have been a nice buffer to stocks.

of course, the next 20 years will not be like the last 35 years for bonds or stocks.

basically if you are going to hold alot of equities (which i'd generally suggest) then i would counter-balance with 20% of long treasuries. no need for bond funds with some risk-on exposure. do a barbell with equities and treasuries (long term or shorter)... note: might be technical misuse of barbell term

if you are going fixed income heavy, then i'd look into all kinds of categories, like high yield and emerging markets debt.

muni's if you have high tax rate.

my basic thought is that there isn't that big a performance differential between long term USA bonds and long term G7-type bonds (at least the biggest companies)

it's hard right now as rates are so low...... but if they go up alot, it won't be good for equity funds either.

I don't claim to have deep bond market insights, but I have most of my bond money in AGG.
https://www.ishares.com/us/products/...ond-market-etf

BND is essentially the same fund. I have some TIPS, but I just don't see raging inflation in the future as baby boomers start dying off (I'm at the tail end of the boom) so I only have a small allocation to TIPS.

I don't have any international bonds. Don't like the currency risk, which I suppose can help at times as well.

EMB for emerging bonds is worth looking at. It is dollar denominated. I think the premium over US treasuries is higher than the increased risk would indicate.

@ OP

What is your goal for bond investing?

For income/yield, blue chip yields are probably doing better than bonds these days, even on a risk adjusted metric.

For normal diversification (e.g. if you were trying to achieve a 60/40 growth/income ratio), just buy FGMNX (or the vanguard equivalent). Cannot be beat on a value/expense metric. IMO, forget about the ETF/ETN universe.

For holding a part of your savings or emergency fund (i.e. 6-9 months worth of expenses), just open a treasurydirect.gov account and buy I-bonds.

IMO, inflation will have to re-emerge as there will not be enough workers to pay off debts and entitlements.